Chapter One: Time Flies Like an Arrow

  The moment when time stands still, specifically speaking, there is no feeling at all.

  Su Can was surprised to see himself keeping a low profile, with his hands inserted into his pockets and his left foot already taking a step forward, with the heel of his right foot raised as support.

  He stood frozen in place like a statue on the street, strange and peculiar.

  His mouth was still slightly agape from the shock of a moment ago, and the fly hovering three centimeters in front of his face suddenly flew away with a flourish, but it seemed to have shared the same fate as Su Can, as if it had been paused, frozen in mid-air. The green glint of its compound eyes made Su Can's nausea pile up in his chest like a geometric progression.

  The female owner of a grocery store next door poured dirty water onto the street, dispersing it in mid-air with a ferocious posture, and big drops of water splashed around in mid-air, but they just wouldn't fall down.

  Softly glowing street lamps from the lamp posts cover this street corner, under the neon lights, a swarm of mosquitoes and moths cluster together, like a cloud solidified in concrete.

  But just ten seconds ago, this world was still operating in a normal worldview in Su Can's heart.

  Three months ago, a new competitor joined the project department of his company. The newcomer was an elite student from a top domestic university, and he, who had been struggling with poor grades since childhood and graduated from a third-rate university, had a huge gap in academic qualifications.

  A month ago, this new competitor suddenly emerged and quickly became close with the company's upper and lower levels, its business also stood out, making Su Can look inferior by comparison.

  Then a week ago, the company's board of directors adopted the other party's project plan book, and he was demoted to a nameless position. Later, the other party summoned him in the boss's office, embracing the boss's daughter.

  So Su Can lost to his formidable opponent with a foregone conclusion, losing the project manager position he had held for three years, and was given a seven-day vacation, as if being exiled, a kind of victor's veiled humiliation towards the defeated.

  Su Can's life was far from being as brilliant as his name, having lived in his hometown for 19 years. As he walked on the road he had been walking on for at least ten years, the stars shone brightly above him and the streetlights dimly lit up the night. But Su Can let out a bitter laugh, realizing that his life was just like the road before him - a vast expanse of hardship and darkness.

  Poor grades barely got him into a mediocre junior high school, and his miserable high school experience led to an equally dismal college entrance exam. In the end, he could only get into a university that many people had never even heard of. If life is full of turning points, then Su Can has never grasped them. Every battle in his life has been linked to failure, forming a tragic life that belongs to him alone.

  Su Can originally thought that his life was like this, constantly being defeated by others, wandering on the edge of the bottom, and finally marrying a wife who was not considered beautiful, making a living, and spending the rest of his life.

  As he walked through the streets of his hometown, where he had come to heal his wounds, Su Can recalled a faded and almost moldy part of his memory that had been hidden away. Many years ago, he had also walked on this road to the gloomy middle school.

  And yet, I stood in the same posture, the same position, even at the same moment of pause. Everything was as if two points in time had converged into one place, this sparse starry winter sky, after more than a decade.

  Time stopped just ten seconds before it coincided with this moment.

  The entire world was silent, and Su Can didn't know what he had stumbled upon - a god, a monster, or a terrifying scene like a cursed object. He only knew that apart from being able to think, his senses hadn't been sealed off yet, but he couldn't do anything else, including blinking an eye. Oddly enough, after keeping his eyes wide open for nearly twenty seconds, he didn't feel the slightest bit tired.

  Watching the world come to a standstill and hover before one's eyes, is this the premature arrival of the Mayan prophecy of doomsday? Or is all of this just an illusion? But Su Can asked himself if he was foolish enough to consider such a realistic scene as an illusion.

  Su Can guarantees that at this moment, no one can explain it, whether it's Einstein, Newton, Archimedes... even those experts and professors who shout loudly in the media every day, when faced with such a thing, they will be speechless except for staring blankly at themselves.

  The world suddenly moved, but time defied its normal state and reversed instead.

  The water splashed out from the grocery store next door, and the evil spirit that had been lurking in every corner of the room suddenly disappeared into a bucket. The female owner, with a slightly mature and flirtatious demeanor, retreated back into her shop, leaving behind an atmosphere that was truly terrifying, reminiscent of a horror movie.

  The green-headed fly dancing in front of its own mouth three centimeters away was swung to the ninth cloud at sonic speed.

  The stars in the sky faded away, suddenly lit up again, quickly went dark, and then lit up once more.

  Speed so fast that the fleeting shadows of these flying arrows on Su Can's body are bright and dark.

  Everything around the neighborhood is changing rapidly, Su Can stared blankly at the newly built seven-story building next to him, which was quickly dismantling from a finished product to a shocking skeleton and then disappearing. After that, it was a sunken foundation, filled up later, turned into an empty space, "growing" countless old tile houses with mottled walls.

  The grocery store is still there, the main body of the grocery store mixed with wood and concrete, from the original old scene, gradually becoming brighter and newer.

  The sky above, which was originally empty and devoid of anything, is gradually being replaced by a dense and complex network of overhead wires. The roadsides are also starting to sprout concrete utility poles out of nowhere, making the streets narrow and the trees disappear.

  Finally, Su Can adapted to the entire world collapsing around him, changing his appearance, and the only thing that made him feel uneasy was that he couldn't see a single person from start to finish!

  Not a soul in sight! The world was changing rapidly and silently, like a silent film, panic and fear spreading slowly and quietly in Su Can's motionless heart.

  Then the movement of time gradually slowed down, slower and slower, as if it was the same as the time he had frozen before, until it slowed down to another freeze.

  At this time, the surrounding streets have already undergone earth-shaking changes and seem to have reverted back to the scene of over a decade ago.

  Time stood still for about ten seconds again.

  Back to normal!

  "Cough! Cough!" Under the psychological effect, Su Can, who had not breathed for a long time, coughed out loud at the first moment, taking big mouthfuls of air, gasping and even coughing until his eardrums rang.

  I've got sound! Oh my god, I finally have sound again! I'm back in the normal world!

  Then a hubbub of noise flooded into his ears, Su Can blinked and looked around clearly, he was in the midst of a crowded throng of people, to be specific, it was a throng of students.

  There were constantly boys and girls with backpacks or pushing carts, passing by from their sides. Ahead of them was a sea of students, and they found themselves in the middle of a crowded passageway after school. People kept brushing past them, making Su Can, who had suddenly stopped, feel like a rock in a rushing river that didn't fit in at all.

  Golden sunlight pours in from the side, spreading across the ground, a stark contrast to the previous gloomy dusk. The nearby convenience stores and small shops are too numerous to count, and it's clear that business is booming.

  Not yet the unconventional attire of post-90s, but rather a group of aunties who appear to be from the same era as myself when I was in school, standing together at a small stall next to a steaming hot fried potato stall.

  Su Chan subconsciously looked at his hand, but was startled. Is this really his own hand? How did it suddenly become so thin and small?!

  And his own shirt and suit were gone, replaced by a pair of bare arm warmers. He was only wearing a thin T-shirt, the kind that had been washed white. His lower body was a pair of similarly washed-white jeans, and below that was a pair of Double Star brand sneakers that looked a bit old. On both shoulders were two tight bags supporting the weight on his back.

  Su Can in the crowd, with a very strange posture, his hands bent back to his back, stroking, his head twisted back, as if he wanted to see the fleas on his own back. However, what he saw was... his school bag.

  On the school bag was printed in bold letters - "Addis"!

  "My God! I've almost abandoned the antique dual-shoulder bag from my distant student era, and it's actually hanging on my back again, and what's more, it's a blatant counterfeit!"

  Firstly, Su Can thought that the most sensible thing to do was to find a mirror. In the end, he stood in front of a broken half-mirror at a grocery store and saw his full appearance clearly.

  His face, which looked younger than his age by more than a decade, still had a hint of greenness, and his hair was not the short style he had when he worked, but rather a soft, slightly disheveled mess that reached his forehead, with a few strands scattered across it. He wore a T-shirt that accentuated his slender build, jeans, and sneakers - the typical attire of a student. His height was nearly 10 centimeters shorter than his original 174 centimeters.

  After being stunned for half a minute, Su Can finally asked the most clichéd question of his life, "Boss, may I ask... what year is it this year? What month? What day? What time?"

  In front of her, a beautiful-eyed woman blinked and looked at the crowd of students outside the grocery store with a dazed expression, but was amused by Su Can's words, turned around and shouted inside, "Mom, a student asked me what year and month it is today?"

  An middle-aged woman walked out of the store, wiping her hands with a handkerchief, chuckled and said, "Whose kid studied so hard that they've gone crazy, not knowing what year it is for several years now, and still alive!"

  Su Can said: "You're right, I'm back to normal now."

  "In '98, June 13th." The girl in front of him said with a smile. Su Can only then realized that this girl was the future owner of the grocery store, but at that time she was a woman in her thirties with a charming demeanor, whereas now she was just a twenty-year-old girl full of youthful energy. It seemed like she had taken over the family business, and a sense of familiarity arose, at least it counted as a mysterious return to eleven years ago for Su Can, the first person he could recognize.

  "By the way, even you little brother who doesn't know what date it is today, your mid-term exams are in three days, right? You should face them with a relaxed attitude. But looking at how you can't even get the time straight, I'm sure you're one of the top students in class. While working hard, don't forget to take breaks sometimes."

  "Huh? Ah? What, the college entrance exam!?" Su Can was still sorting out his suddenly disordered thoughts from eleven years ago when he heard his future female boss's encouraging words and blurted out in surprise.

  "Top student?" The few girls who had just entered the store turned their eyes to Su Can, and then collectively exchanged glances, their mouths curving up into a sneer.

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